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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3185 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The retirement revolution that failed: Why the 401 (k) isn't working

Practically speaking, it's the same.

No, walk with me. We're all "just desperate enough to play the game." NONE of us feels as if the way things are right now is serving us the best, but it's serving us well enough that it's totally not worth the risk of tearing it all down. What was the quote? Democracy is the system where everyone loses equally?

Nearlly all of us, were the sky to fall tomorrow, would defend that shit we intrinsically know to be our shit. We would fight for those things that we intrinsically know belong to us. We would further band together with those people we know, who are also fighting for their shit, against "those" who would take it from us.

"Those" are the people that intrinsically know that the system has been cheating them, that band together with those people that are also working to right an injustice. To them, equalizers. To us, looters. And just like that, it's a civilization again. A shaky one, a rough one, but realistically speaking, you're taking up arms to defend your mortgage, not your house. You're fighting for the status quo.

That's why the gears keep turning. Because while we all dream of better things, we don't want to hack our neighbors to death with a machete to get them. Neither do they. You need to start painting up things like nationalism and racism and ethnic cleansing and shit to get people to tear their neighbors apart in the name of justice and you'll see that shit coming.

THAT is when you need to take a long hard look at what your mortgage is worth and whether you want to take the penalty on your IRA.





user-inactivated  ·  3185 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think I might have been too terse. You've got it pretty good, but I bet you wouldn't be mixing reality tv if you didn't have obligations that require money. I've got it pretty good too, but I wouldn't piss on people who call other people "resources" if they were on fire if I didn't have a father nearing retirement with ridiculous medical bills and no savings because I used to have a mother with ridiculous medical bills. Like everyone says whenever anyone speculates about how things might be done better, "but who will be the garbage man?" "Keeping shit working" means when you have the Great Depression you get the New Deal, but it also means you roll it back when people get too comfortable, on pain of there be no one obliged to drive the garbage trucks.

kleinbl00  ·  3184 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No argument from me. I suspect my fundamental level of cynicism is higher.